It is generally known to include a fire suppression system in certain portions of aircraft, in particular lavatories and the waste containers within the lavatories. One fire suppression system includes a canister filled with pressurized Halon. Such Halon systems, however, are no longer desirable for fire suppression. Also, any chemical fire suppressant which is pressurized within a canister includes these similar disadvantages.
One disadvantage of the pressurized chemical systems is that the only way to determine when such a system has been discharged or is leaking is to dismantle it and weigh the bottle holding the pressurized chemical to determine if the amount present is within acceptable ranges. This requires that the system is substantially dismantled and parts of it are removed from the aircraft itself. Thus, a large amount of labor and time is required to ensure that such systems remain within acceptable operating ranges.
Another disadvantage is when the pressurized chemical fire suppression system has been discharged, the bottle holding the pressurized chemical must be replaced. These systems do not allow easy recharging of the pressurized chemical to reuse the system since they must be sent to the manufacturer for recharge. Furthermore, other portions of the system, including the nozzles and lines, may also need to be replaced after only one discharge of the fire suppression system.
Yet a further disadvantage of the pressurized chemical systems includes the chemical itself. It has become undesirable to emit such chemicals into the atmosphere and some have been banned due to ozone depletion. Therefore, it has become desirable to use a fire suppression system that does not employ a pressurized chemical such as Halon.
It would therefore be highly desirable to provide a fire suppression system that operates without introducing undesirable chemicals into the environment.
It would also be desirable to provide a fire suppression system which enables easy identification of whether the fire suppression system has been activated. Furthermore, it would be helpful if the system allowed a maintenance person to easily identify whether the system must be recharged or serviced.
It would be a further advantage to provide a fire suppression system which could be installed on an aircraft without requiring significant structural modifications to the aircraft
Still further, it would be desirable to provide a fire suppression system for any aircraft lavatory or waste container used in the lavatory, which does not require extensive machining and creation of new parts for the fire suppression system.
It is also desirable to provide a system that may be easily installed in the aircraft, and which forms a small modular apparatus that may be used with its own water supply or with the main water supply of the aircraft.